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Show 756 MR. A. G. BUTLER ON [^ 2. An Account of two Collections of Lepidoptera recently received from Somali-land. By A R T H U R Gr. BUTLER, F.L.S., F.Z.S., &c. [Received August 5, 1885.] (Plate XLVII.) At the meeting held on the 4th November, 1884, I had the pleasure of bringing before the Society an account of a collection sent to the British Museum by Major J. W . Yerbury from Aden l. Along with his Aden collection Major Yerbury forwarded to me a small but interesting series collected by him in the spring of 1 884 on the Somali coast. During the present year a second much larger series, collected by Messrs. J. G. Thrupp, Lort-Pbillips, and James during an expedition southwards into the interior of Somali from Berbera, was presented by them to the Museum. These Lepidoptera, as I am assured by Mr. Lort-Phillips, were principally obtained upon a plateau commencing at about forty miles from the coast and extending due south for about 200 miles, the time of collecting being about four months. Since the two collections together contain examples of 55 species, some idea of the geographical relationships of the fauna can be gained from them; the annexed table shows that the relationship to Aden is very strongly marked, no less than twenty-one species being identical and three nearly allied to Aden forms; next in order comes Abyssinia, twelve species identical and nine allied ; thirdly, Kilimanjaro, ten, and probably eleven, species identical and three allied; lastly, Natal, nine or ten species identical and fourteen allied. Omitting from the fifty-five species seven forms not known to exist elsewhere and to which allied types are not yet recorded (so far as I have been able to discover), nearly half the known Butterflies and Moths of Somali are Aden species, a quarter Abyssinian, a fifth Kilimanjarian, and a fifth Natal. The allied or representative types I consider of less importance, especially in the case of so well-worked a locality as Natal when compared with localities so little known as Kilima-njaro or even Abyssinia, from both of which not a few types closely related to those of Somali may confidently be expected to come. On the other hand, if the nineteen new species in these collections be omitted from our calculations, nearly four sevenths of the remainder are identical with species found in Aden. I think, therefore, it may fairly be concluded that the Lepidopterous fauna is essentially Arabian in character; but, since the species of Arabia have a much closer affinity to those of Africa than Asia, it seems reasonable to conclude that they have for the most part immigrated from the African coast and originated in Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, and Somali-land. 1 See P.Z.S. 1884, p. 478. |
